Body Language
by effulgentcolors
Summary: Killian is the captain of the football team and Emma is your 'nerdy girl'. They also happen to be Ruby's brother and best friend and she is frustrated with them both. A/N: This is the result of an anonymous prompt I got on Tumblr. And it's supposed to get smutty. Sooner rather than later.
1. Chapter 1

"Ruby, my paper on body language is due to on Friday, I have to get some research done!" Emma had never been very good at the "puppy eyes" method, probably because she rarely had to use it, but the situation was dire so she was pulling out all the stops.

Ruby rolled her eyes at her friend's desperate attempts.

"No way am I letting you lock yourself in your room on a day like that," she said, arms crossed in front of her chest, emphasizing her already impressive cleavage.

The brunette's eyes suddenly lit up and a mischievous grin stretched her blood-red lips.

"OK, you don't wanna waste your day in a café? The football team has practice in 20 minutes."

"So?" asked Emma with as much disinterest as she could put into a single word, but her eyes shifted around nervously.

"Sooo, you're gonna come with me and make googly eyes at my loser of a brother while I pretend to not care whether or not Victor will ask me out again," said Ruby, nodding in approval to her own plan.

It was Emma's turn to roll her eyes.

"First, no, I'm not. Second, I don't do googly eyes," she glared at Ruby to prove her point. "Third, if the captain of the football team and, accidentally, the most popular and chased-after guy on campus is a loser, I don't wanna know what you think I am."

Ruby opened her mouth to reply but Emma cut her off.

"And last, we both know that Victor's got it bad for you and will probably get a leg broken during practice if you take your piece-of-cloth-that's-supposed-to-pass-for-a-skirt anywhere near the field. Along with that amount of," Emma's hand waved in the general direction of Ruby's seemingly endless legs. "… legs."

"I'll have you know that piece of cloth cost five times as much as what you would consider an actual skirt. And I remember you telling me I looked rather fetching in it."

"Yeah, well, I wasn't exactly thinking you would wear it while the sun was still out and there were professors all around," fired back Emma but her lips were twitching upwards.

"Trust me, Ems, it's better this way. People can't handle me when the sun is down and the moon is out," Ruby winked and grabbed her friend's hand, dragging her towards the football field.

"Ruby!" Emma was past the stage of trying to save her dignity and dug her heels into the ground like a stubborn child.

"Oh, and for the record, Killian is a _complete_ loser. Trust me. You are perfect for each other."

That last part affected Emma enough to give Ruby the chance to start pulling her along once more.

* * *

"Hey, I saw you at practice today," was the first thing out of Killian's mouth when he came home that night. "What were you and Swan doing there?"

"Aye,_ captain_, contrary to popular belief, you don't own that field, the players on it, the benches or the panties of all the girls on them," replied Ruby sarcastically without looking up from her task of painting her toenails.

Victor had asked her out again.

Killian snatched up the little bottle of nail polish before she had even realized how close he was.

"But I do own this now," he declared, waving the object in front of her face like the five-year-old that he was.

"Gimme that!" demanded Ruby, trying to steal it from him.

"Ah, ah," he held it higher, making it impossible for her to reach it without getting up and ruining the nails she had already done. "Not so fast, luv."

"Ugh, I told her you are a total loser," mumbled Ruby, trying to seize her nail polish.

"You told who what?!" he dropped his arm in surprise and indignation and Ruby snatched the black nail polish back.

"Ha! See? Loser." she stuck out her tongue at him.

"Ruby!" Killian growled in warning, only succeeding in making his sister roll her eyes.

"Oh, relax about it. It's not like it matters. I can tell Emma you watch The Princess Bride every night and write in your dairy with differently coloured pencils and she would still think you are the definition of amazing."

"I do not watch it every night and I do not have a da- wait what?" Killian's eyes suddenly lit up, a silly grin stretching across his whole face.

"Oh My God!" Ruby slapped a hand over her mouth.

"Emma fancies me?" by that moment Ruby would have been scared that her brother's face would split in two, if she wasn't too busy worrying about her own life.

"Killian, Killian, you can't tell her I said that!" she got on her knees on the couch, painted toenails completely forgotten. "She's gonna kill me!"

And in the next second the pleading was gone and Ruby narrowed her eyes.

"And then I'm gonna kill you!" she growled, pointing a perfectly manicured finger at him.

Killian rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to reply but she cut him off.

"And I'm gonna tell her you feel the same way!"

Ruby could count the times her brother had shut his mouth faster than he fired a ball on one hand. This was one of them. Her eyes sparkled with glee. Touchdown. She had always known there was something there but she hadn't been confident enough to play matchmaker. Until now.

"Who says I do?" he said defensively, trying to turn the game around, but it was too late.

"Oh, please," the girl rolled her eyes and sat back down, returning to her task. "Could you two just bang already and get it out of your systems so that I don't have to cut sexual tension along with my stake every time I invite Emma to dinner? I really don't like the flavour it adds to pork."

"I don't wanna just _bang_ Emma Swan. OK, Ruby?"

His offended voice, the edge of anger in it, made her turn her head around and take in her big brother's glare and clenched fists. She scrutinized him for a few seconds and opened her mouth as if to say something serious, something about taking risks and having hope and finding each other. But then she remember that just because Mary-Margaret was with David, visiting his grandparents, it didn't mean she had to take her place and just settled for rolling her eyes at him as usual.

"Well, it's a place to start."

Killian groaned and turned to go to his room but stopped at the stairs when his sister's voice floated from the living room.

"And God knows… ok, maybe not God, but I do, that you both haven't seen any action in a looong time. It's depressing! You're depressing me, Killian!"

The football captain took a deep breath, fighting the desire to strangle his sister. This is why their parents needed to buy a second house.


	2. Chapter 2

If there was one thing Emma Swan didn't do, it was clichés. That and procrastination. She just didn't get it when Ruby constantly complained about not having enough time to finish her projects. You had a task and a deadline. How hard was it to finish one before the other arrived? According to her best friend – very. So, no, Emma Swan did not do clichés or procrastinating. Which is why she decided that someone upstairs must seriously hate her when she crashed, a dozen books and papers in her arms, into the one guy in the whole world in front of whom she wanted to avoid looking like a complete idiot.

Her belongings ended up scattered all over the floor and the only reason she didn't join them were Killian's lightening reflexes and the unbreakable hold her hands took of his arms. Mmm, Killian's arms.

"It's about bloody time," he grinned down at her.

Emma immediately let go of him, almost losing her balance again in the process.

"Yes, I suppose I am the very last girl in this town that hasn't fallen into your arms," she fired back, annoyed at her uncharacteristic clumsiness and even more infuriated by the smirk on his way-too-handsome face.

The world really hated her.

"Jealous, Swan?" he lifted a challenging eyebrow, looking her up and down.

Emma frowned. What the hell was that all about?

Killian Jones was the definition of the handsome smug bastard who flirts with everything that walks. Yet, for some reason, he had never used his infamous 'smoulder' on her. Sometimes she actually wondered if he wasn't feeling just as awkward and nervous as she was whenever they were around each other. Most of the time she just felt left out and stupid about that. How pathetic was it to want a guy to treat you like one of his numerous conquests?

But today neither of those applied. Today obviously she was finally interacting with _the Captain_.

The blonde rolled her eyes. She found it absolutely ridiculous that everybody called him that. And she got physically sick at the way the term rolled off the tongues of girls like Ella and Milah. Yes, you have it bad for the sex-on-legs captain of the football team. Who doesn't? At least Emma prided herself on being good at hiding it.

"You got me, Killian. I spend every moment antagonizing over your latest conquest and wishing I was the one blessed with that glorious privilege."

Instead of backing down the brunette leaned forward until his lips were brushing her ear and whispered.

"Perhaps you will be, Swan."

Before she could manage to get her brain working again he pulled back, winked at her and walked away.

The bastard! Where did he get the nerve to-

/

"RUBY!" Emma slammed the door of her dorm, glaring at her best friend who had made herself at home on the blonde's bed and was going through her photo album, seemingly without a care in the world.

"Well, hello to you too," said the brunette, popping her gum.

"Ruby, have you talked to your brother recently?"

"Sadly, yes. We do live in the same house, you know? Which is, if I have to be honest, part of the reason why I'm hanging out with you in this cubicle an-"

"About me, Ruby!" said Emma, hands on her hips and voice like steel. "Have you talked about me?"

"Oh!" Ruby scratched her nose, looking away from her friend. "Umm, no, I don't think so. Why wou-"

"Oh my God! You have!" Emma slapped a hand over her mouth, pure horror entering her eyes.

"I said NO!" yelled Ruby, panic slowly seeping into her eyes.

"Oh, please," Emma waved her arms around in frustration. "I've been working on my body language project for days! I know what it means when people scratch their nose. What is more, you looked right! People look left when they're trying to remember something and left when they're making stuff up. You are lying!"

"Ugh," Ruby's shoulders slumped. "Science crap. Would you stop getting smarter and smarter? What, I can't even lie to my best friend now?"

Emma lifted an eyebrow, arms crossed in front of her chest and features set in a not-playing-around expression.

"Fine," the brunette sighed in defeat. "I slipped, I'm sorry."

Emma's mouth twitched nervously, her teeth biting slightly into her lower lip.

"What did you tell him?" she asked in a small voice, the fight going out of her.

"That you think the sun shines out of his ass?" tried Ruby with an apologetic smile.

"RUBY!" Emma made two steps toward her best friend before whirling around and burying her head in her hands. "Kill me. Kill me now."

"It's not that big a deal!"

"Not that big a deal?" the blonde faced her friend, her eyes blazing again. "Ruby, I'm the outcast orphan with A's on everything but actual life, who's in love with the damn football captain, who, for his part, happens to have the whole town kissing his ass. You can make a romantic comedy about my life only it would be pathetic rather than funny and the 'romantic' ending will consist of me, tons of ice-cream and cats! Oh God, I'm a walking cliché."

"Well, that is actually kinda funny considering how much you hate those," muttered Ruby, sneaking a glance at her aggravated friend.

"I had one advantage in that fucked up situation and you took it away!" groaned the blonde.

The other girl frowned in confusion.

"He didn't know!" yelled Emma in frustration, running her hands through her hair. "I'm not saying that was gonna get me the guy or anything, ok? I know better than that! I'm not completely delusional! But at least I wasn't one of the other two hundred girls that have 'Idiot#189 Jones' written all over their notebooks. At least I was… different. Special. Fuck. That's ridiculous. I don't even know. Forget it! Doesn't matter. One more person to avoid in the hallways so what, right?"

But her eyes were shining in a way that Ruby had only seen once. The time Emma had invested every penny of the prize she had won in an essay contest in tracking down her parents, having narrowed it down to Maine thanks to her numerous attempts before that, only to come up empty-handed and heart-broken. It had been the last time she tried, she said.

"Emms…" Ruby stepped forward but refrained from hugging the blonde.

Emma Swan wasn't a hugger. The brunette had had a hard time accepting that but she had learned her lesson eventually. She reached over though, grabbing Emma's chin and raising her so that she could make eye-contact.

"You _are_ special," she said sincerely.

"Oh, Ruby, come on," Emma pulled away, rolling her eyes tiredly. "Drop the pep-talk."

"I'm serious!"

The blonde lifted a challenging eyebrow and it reminded Ruby of her brother so much that she sighed in resignation and decided that there was no way to go but forward.

"Just do me a favour, ok? I want everybody dressed in brown on my funeral. Black makes people look slim and elegant and if I'm gonna be dead, the rest of you have no right to look good."

Amusement flickered across Emma's face even as confusion remained the dominant emotion there.

"You're special 'cause he likes you too," said Ruby with great solemnity, as if she had just revealed the world's biggest secret.

"Huh?" the other girl just stood there, staring at her, mouth hanging slightly open.

Ruby turned her gaze upwards, praying for patience and muttering about being surrounded by idiots.

"Look, as I have pointed out many times without any result, my brother is an utter loser. I guess he had to be for me to be so fantastic"

Emma came out of her stupor enough to roll her eyes are her best friend.

"However," continued Ruby. "I admit that he has game."

"You think?" said Emma, her words dripping with sarcasm.

"Yes, yes, Killian is God's gift. Everybody worships the ground he walks on. Blah, blah. Believe it or not, he hasn't let it go to his head. _He _doesn't think the sun shines out of his ass. I'm pretty sure he believes it shines out of yours."

Emma opened her mouth to protest but a perfectly manicured hand stopped her.

"I'm getting there! Anyway, he is still a college guy and he knows what he has and how to use it. However, when he really gives a shit about something, he is as far from the swashbuckling captain as possible. Trust me! I'm the one who sees him freaking out over his math tests and the latest game before going out of the house and putting on the Captain mask."

"I know that," interjected Emma. "That's why-"

"That's why you like him," finished Ruby with a smile.

It was true enough. Not having any family of her own, Emma had been a frequent guest at the Jones' ever since their first year of high-school together. It was why she knew the real Killian better than anyone, except his sister. It was why Ruby was betraying her brother's trust for the first time in her life. Because Emma and Killian weren't teenagers anymore and apparently it was her task to get them to stop acting like ones.

"And that is why I'm telling you this. My brother is his loser self around one person and one person only. That's you."

"Well, sorry to disappoint," said Emma, unwilling to take her friend's words to heart. "But he had plenty of game today when I crashed into him in the hall."

Ruby grinned from ear to ear.

"All with the books flying everywhere and you clutching his oh-so-muscular arms?"

"Shut up," muttered Emma, doing her hardest not to blush. "The universe hates me. I have made my peace with that."

"Well, the universe might but Killian certainly doesn't. I slipped so now that he knows you like him, he doesn't know how to react. Hence, the leaning back on his usual methods. Which won't work on you. Which he would realize. And then, the fun begins."

Emma still looked unconvinced but there was a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth so Ruby allowed herself a triumphant grin.

"I just hope you two appreciate my sacrifice and don't make killing me your first date."


End file.
